If you’re a writer looking for inspiration for a short story, starting with one of these wouldn’t be a bad place to start…

Flash fiction this morning from @pastpostcard.bsky.social 👇

I think that one of my major projects for 2026 is to escape from falling into the trap of seeing everything as doom and overall terminal decline. Specific things might be proper shit, but declaring everything as the end times just plays into the hands of very right wing wrong 'uns

You wait years for a play about Mary Todd Lincoln to hit the London stage etc etc…

Alastair Sim as Scrooge in Scrooge (1951). The meme daddy. So you *can* do it. Film & TV producers have made enough adaptions of Scrooge at the window to fill a whole advent calendar. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. You there boy! What day is this? To-day! Why, CHRISTMAS DAY!

Christmas Eve in Ukraine

Peter Sellers once told Kermit the Frog, "There is no 'me'... there used to be a me but I had it surgically removed." Had he forgotten that a dozen or so years earlier he had been 'Imperial Me' in Rod Serling's Carol For Another Christmas? We're covering it this week! pod.link/1569929507

Ready at my first Smithfield’s Christmas Eve meat auction…

Elegant couple at goldsmith’s shop for a ring, in 1449. But what about those 2 men in the mirror? And what is luring us? Wonderful wares, wonderful painting, Petrus Christus. It’s his day today.

I've stuck randomly generated conspiracies onto Matt from the Telegraph's cartoons to create "Tinfoil Matt" (Not AI, me writing templates, the good old fashioned way to do these things with a strong degree of authorship.) Follow @tinfoil-matt.bsky.social NOW.

A Venn Diagram courtesy of my pre-Christmas Farm Direct order. Enjoy…

Just love this. Endlessly fascinating in so many ways…

In London this Tuesday evening? Want to kick of the festivities with a bang? Come to Liars' League! I'll be your host for "Blessed and Cursed" - five stories read by actors, with mince pies and a book quiz (infamous). Grab one of the last remaining tickets! It'll be a ho-ho-hoot... #LiveLit

Breathtaking, but now expected.

Most discussions about “misinformation” treat the problem as if people simply don’t have good enough critical-thinking skills. It sounds intuitive, but it’s not entirely accurate. The problem isn’t just individual ignorance, it’s the structure of the information environment people are placed into.

👻It's a fine tradition to read ghost stories in winter, but why not rest your eyes instead & listen to #HauntedAndHunted, our latest podcast feat. @carriecohen01.bsky.social @timlarkfield.bsky.social @timaldrich.bsky.social @davemcgrath.bsky.social You're welcome🎅 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

Starmer won’t like the analogy (he’s a Gooner, after all) but he shares a lot in common with Arne Slot: won big last year, spent lots of money, seriously underperforming in the league table/polls

The murder rate in London is now the lowest in decades, perhaps centuries. (The Times)

There’s something about crises that prompts excellent writing. This is particularly good and heartily dismaying. Change Starmer for another MP and unless they get this, nothing changes

New Substack: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-incompe... Parts of the Labour party and BBC simply don't know what their jobs should be.

Rachel Reeves has no good choices left. After this week's income tax u-turn, is there any way she can salvage the Budget? www.edrith.co.uk/p/reeves-in-...

@ecwestcott.bsky.social in case you’ve not seen…. 👏👏👏

<Phone rings> Growth Fairy: Get that would you mate, I’m watching Homes Under the Hammer. Efficiency Fairy: Don’t trouble your fat ass. … EF: That was you know who and we’re back baby, we’re so back.

Huzzah for @markmiodownik.bsky.social! Bring your broken or damaged possessions to the UCL Repair Café event at UCL East Marshgate in Stratford on Friday, 7th November! www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/...

I generally tolerate email marketing at best but this from BackMarket is rather good:

Teenager #1 wanders round the house singing snippets of lyrics to the songs in his headphones and it feels a bit like a Never Mind the Buzzcocks episode

I get on the Elizabeth Line at Paddington and put the Philip Glass soundtrack to The Hours on in my earbuds ‘just knowing’ that it would be relevant to the booking I’m reading, @willstorr.bsky.social’s The Science of Storytelling. Two pages in and there’s refs to Wolff and Cunningham…

once again I am begging you all not to use third-party link-shortening services. You don't need to use them! Once the preview shows up on your post you can delete the link itself so you have all the characters! And those of us on zero-trust work laptops get blocked if we click a shorturl!

Tech policy is full of imaginaries. Pick a word or phrase ("AI", "digital ID" are two), add the phrase "efficiency" or "investment", and people who are digitally adept but lacking technology development experience will be queuing round the block to write it into a speech or a policy paper.

A reshuffle *is* happening this week then in No 10. Darren Jones and James Murray will attend Cabinet. Jones' Chief Sec role is new: "[He] will work collaboratively across UK Govt to drive forward progress in key policy areas, reporting directly to the PM." No mention of 'missions' anywhere though

To quote Oscar Wilde on Grimsby Town’s mauling of Man U, “It would take a heart of stone…”

A conventional of plastic bollards in Strutton Ground SW1. They are all fixed to the ground. Any thoughts on why? @londonist.com

Joint statement on Gaza from AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters

Today we’ve launched a major new Strategic Review – backed by a £150 million spending commitment over 5 years – to back rigorous research & social innovation that tackles the UK’s biggest social challenges. www.nuffieldfoundation.org/about/strate...

In an effort that will no doubt torch my follower base, I have laid out some basic numbers around our fiscal situation. Obvious, but still a little sobering for me. freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/t...

Am feeling a curious absence of sport today. No test match or tennis or Euros or F1 qualifying or even TdF (rest day). (Least said about the FIFA thing the better but that’s done too…) Feeling curiously bereft for mid July

Am feeling a curious absence of sport today. No test match or tennis or Euros or F1 qualifying or even TdF (rest day). (Least said about the FIFA thing the better but that’s done too…) Feeling curiously bereft for mid July

Met some old friends for lunch today and recalled that I first met them when they came over to my then new girlfriend’s flat in 2008 and we listened, gripped to the Wimbledon Men’s Final - Federer vs Nadal on the radio. This one may be shaping up to to match it…

Watching the men’s Wimbledon final and as ever struggling not to see Ron Howard instead of Jannick Sinner…

“just as Trump is forcing Voice of America to withdraw from Ethiopia, Russian and Chinese state-owned media are moving in. Last month, the RT Academy held its first-ever journalism training course on the African continent in Ethiopia” @jamesrball.com app.thenewworld.co.uk/story/138723...

Perhaps “in defence of: it’s all a bit more complicated than that…” worth a read

Once you've taken the #Austen250 test, DON'T FORGET to submit an Austen influenced story for @liarsleague.bsky.social! 800-2000 words by 6th July, Women&Girl authors, writing W&G characters to be read by a fab actress! www.liarsleague.com/liars_league...

2025 is #JaneAusten250 birthday & @liarsleague.bsky.social's annual #WomenAndGirls theme is celebrating! Seeking stories from female authors, featuring female protagonists, & inspired by Austen's works, characters, setting, themes, plots, or her own life. www.liarsleague.com/liars_league...

Strong Day Today vibes about the War News this morning (the end bit of the episode tbf)

Venn diagram

Also note that the color of your swimsuit matters for visibility in emergencies www.cnn.com/2024/06/07/h...

“According to the CDC, in 10 percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening”

Just looking through packets of family photos from the mid 1990s - an era that had autofocus - and am struck by still how many were dreadful photos. Blurred, bad composition, colours off

Even before I heard the devastating, horrific news of political assassination in Minnesota, I woke up this morning thinking about Emily Dickinson's great poem "'Hope' is the thing with feathers -" Lots of people know this beautiful little poem, but fewer, I think(?) realize when it was written. /1

Just some action shots of the fantastic #shortstory reads from #DownAndOut on Tue. Huge thanks to #LiarsLeague actors Rose, Olly, Kim, Dan & Matthew & authors Hannah, Neil, Maria, John & Brian! Wanna join? Submit by 6 July to our Women&Girls #JaneAusten theme: www.liarsleague.com/liars_league...